Douai School was a public (fee-charging boarding) school run by the Douai Abbey Benedictine community at Woolhampton, England, until it closed in 1999.
History
1615–1818
The monastic community was founded in Paris in 1615 and moved to Douai after the French Revolution taking over the former buildings of the community of St Gregory. The monastery provided educational opportunities from the beginning, but had no formal school in its first decades of existence. A boarding school later emerged in a dependent priory at La Celle.
1818–1903
Following the move to Douai in 1818, and the refoundation of the community by Richard Marsh, a more recognisable school emerged and by 1823, there were 28 boys on the roll. Around that time, the fees for students were being advertised at £32 a year or £30 for church students.'The Catholicon' (1836) 26. Links with the Roman Catholic dioceses in England were crucial to the school's survival. In the 1880s the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham was sending seven boys a year to the school.Catholics of Consequence: Transnational Education, Social Mobility, and the Irish Catholic Elite 1850–1900, Ciaran O'Neill (Oxford, 2014), p.195. . Rather than the vertical house system of English schools, Douai retained the horizontal divisions of 'Rhetoric', 'Poetry', 'Grammar' and 'Syntax' throughout the nineteenth century, and even for a time in its new home in England. From Repatriation to Revival: Continuity and Change in the English Benedictine Congregation 1795–1850, Alban Hood (Farnborough, 2014), p. 163. .
1903–1999
The modern school in Woolhampton, Berkshire was formed by the site's pre-existing St Mary's College's merging with the school of the incoming Benedictine community that moved from Douai in June 1903 as a result of Waldeck-Rousseau's Law of Associations (1901). Former pupils lobbied the Irish Parliamentary Party to raise the matter of the expulsion in Parliament. However it was Roman Catholic English Conservatives who espoused the cause: Lord Edmund Talbot in the House of Commons and 11th Lord Herries of Terregles in the House of Lords.O'Neill, p.194
The merger produced a school of 109 boy boarders, which had fallen to only 63 by 1911. Its long history in France and its monastic influence meant that Douai, although an independent boarding school, had in large part escaped the influence of the public school ethos that had developed in 19th-century England. However, in 1920, Douai was admitted to membership of the Headmasters' Conference. In the 1930s David Matthew, later Apostolic Delegate for Africa, congratulated the headmaster, Ignatius Rice, on the fact that: "no Catholic school has been so free from the influence of Arnold of Rugby as Douai has been."The English Benedictine Community of St Edmund King and Martyr. Paris 1615 / Douai 1818 / Woolhampton 1903–2003. A Centenary History, edited by Geoffrey Scott (Worcester: Stanbrook Abbey Press, 2003), p. 149. .
Day boys were admitted from the early 1960s, when annual boarding fees were £360.'Catholic Herald', 27 December 1963 By 1984, there was a record number of 333 pupils. The school became co-educational in 1993. After several years of financial difficulty, exacerbated by rumours of abuse, it closed in 1999.
Post closure In November 2017, a former House Master at Douai, Father Michael Creagh, was sentenced at Reading Crown Court after pleading guilty to two counts of child abuse offences which were committed while he was at the Boarding School.
Buildings
In 1786, the Earl of Fingall, the squire of Woolhampton sold his Woolhampton estate and moved to Ireland. His family had been recusant Roman Catholics and had maintained a chapel and chaplain at Woolhampton House (now Elstree School). On leaving the neighbourhood he left his chaplain to minister to the local Roman Catholics and endowed him with some of lands and some cottages. Three of these cottages stood on the site of the entrance tower, and in one of these, Woolhampton Lodge, the priest lived and had a chapel.
The oldest part of the current buildings date from around 1830. The main entrance and tower were constructed in 1888 in the Tudor Gothic style; the architect was Frederick Walters. In 1829 Fr Stephen Dambrine was appointed to Woolhampton. He embarked on a building programme which included a chapel in the Gothic style opened in 1833 to replace the chapel in Woolhampton Lodge, and which itself was replaced by the present St Mary's in 1848.
The cricket pavilion was built in 1922 to honour the 56 Old Boys of both Douai and St Mary's College who were killed in the First World War.
In the early years at Woolhampton, the school was seen as an appendage to the monastery and it was only with the foundation of a separate abbey church in the 1930s and the creation of distinct school and monastic refectories in 1944 that a degree of separation emerged. The Monastery was greatly expanded in the 1960s with the building of the new monastery designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd.
In 1983, the gatehouse, hall and three blocks of buildings were grade II listed.
Haydock Hall, the study hall, was briefly converted into a film set for the shooting of the dormitory scenes in the 1990 film Three Men and a Little Lady.The English Benedictine Community of St Edmund King and Martyr, edited by Geoffrey Scott, p. 149.Locations in Three Men and a Little Lady listed on IMDb.com. Accessed 5 March 2008. The former school buildings were also used as a location for the 2002 television film of Goodbye, Mr. Chips.Goodbye, Mr. Chips on imdb.com . Accessed 5 March 2008.
In the early 2000s, the former buildings of the school were adapted into housing, as the Avalon residential development, developed by Bewley Homes and ADAM Urbanism. In the existing school buildings 33 apartments were built, and 44 further apartments were built elsewhere on the site, arranged around enclosed courtyards in a way that reflects the traditional architecture of English schools and colleges.
In July 2017, a clubhouse for Old Boys and a museum was opened on the site of the former cricket pavilion.
Houses
In 1951, the school was finally divided into houses, each under a monastic housemaster: Samson House, named after Abbot Samson of medieval Bury St Edmunds; Faringdon House, named after the martyred last abbot of Reading Abbey Hugh Faringdon; Walmesley House, after Bishop Charles Walmesley, the eighteenth-century member of the Community who had been a mathematician and astronomer. In 1980, a new house was created Gifford House, to commemorate Archbishop Gabriel Gifford. Faringdon ceased to exist in 1992, again leaving just three Houses.
Headmasters
The first headmaster was not appointed until 1909, replacing the older system of a Prefect of Studies and a Prefect of Discipline jointly managing the school under the oversight of the Abbot. A series of headmasters followed in quick succession, before stability was provided by Fr Ignatius Rice (headmaster 1915–1952).
Ignatius Rice was a friend of G. K. Chesterton whose Father Brown novels were based on Father O'Connor, a mutual friend, and he was influential in Chesterton's conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1922. In his younger days he played cricket for Warwickshire during the summer holidays and for some years enjoyed the distinction of being the only monk whose cricket performances were chronicled in Wisden.
In 2005, Edmund Power (headmaster 1993–97) was elected Abbot of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome.
List of Headmasters
Fr Adrian Coughlin OSB (1909–1911) Fr Laurence Powell OSB (1911–1915) Fr Antony Richardson OSB (1915) Fr Ignatius Rice OSB (1915–1952) Fr Alphonsus Tierney OSB (1952–1973) Fr Brian Murphy OSB (1973–1975) Fr Wilfrid Sollom OSB PhD DIC (1975–1987) Fr Geoffrey Scott OSB PhD FSA FRHistS (1987–1993) Fr Edmund Power OSB PhD (1993–1997) Peter McLaughlin PhD (1997–1999)
Former pupils
Former pupils are known as Old Dowegians and are eligible to join the Douai Society, founded in 1868.
Notable former pupils include:
La Celle Patrick Cary (c.1623-57), poet Rev Francis Fenwick (1645–94), monk Sir Thomas Gascoigne (1745–1810), travel writer and Whig MP Henry Howard (1757–1842), historian Henry Swinburne (1743–1803), travel writer Sir John Swinburne, Bt (1762–1860), Whig MP
St Edmund's College, Douai Most Rev James Billsborrow (1862–1931), Archbishop of Cardiff William Canton (1845–1926), author Rt Rev Bernard Collier (1802–90), Bishop of Port-Louis Rt Rev William Cotter (1866–1940), Bishop of Portsmouth Rt Rev Joseph Cowgill (1860–1936), Bishop of Leeds Edward Micklethwaite Curr (1820–1889), Australian settler Gustave Doyen (1836–1923), French painter Rt Rev Robert Fraser (1858–1914), Bishop of Dunkeld Rt Rev Matthew Harkins (1845–1921), American Bishop of Providence Michael A. Healy (1839–1904), US Coast Guard commander Most Rev Dr Frederick Keating (1859–1928), Archbishop of Liverpool Most Rev John McIntyre (1855–1935), Archbishop of Birmingham Rt Rev John McNulty (1879–1943), Bishop of Nottingham Monsignor John O'Connor (1870–1952), priest Most Rev Benedict Scarisbrick OSB (1828–1908), Archbishop of Cyzicus Rt Rev Thomas Pearson OSB (1870–1938), Bishop of Lancaster Fr Ignatius Rice OSB (1883–1955), headmaster Luis Subercaseaux (1882–1973), Chilean athlete and diplomat Pedro Subercaseaux (1880–1956), Chilean painter and priest Georges Tattegrain (1845–1916), French lawyer and poet
St Mary's College, Woolhampton A.M. Burrage (1889–1956), author Rt Rev Arthur Doubleday (1865–1951), Bishop of Brentwood
Douai School, Woolhampton Juan Edgardo Angara (1972– ), Filipino politician Adrian Dally (1966- ), former senior civil servant, including private secretary to two cabinet ministers, and currently Director of Motor Finance and Strategy at the Finance and Leasing Association Anthony Bertram (1897–1978), art historian and novelist Michael Blower MBE (1929– ), architect Sir Daniel Brabin MC QC (1913–75), judge Pablo Casado Blanco (1981- ), Spanish Leader of the Opposition 2018-22 http://www.douaiabbey.org.uk/files/HistSchool.pdf Pupils at the Schools at Douai and Woolhampton Sir Edward William Dutton Colt, Bt (1936– ) Simon Craven (1961–90), 8th Earl of Craven J. A. Cuddon (1928–96), writer Tristan Davies (1956– ), journalist Christopher Derrick (1921–2007), writer Michael Derrick (1915–67), journalist and Liberal politician Brian Andre Doyle (1911–2004), Chief Justice of Zambia Brigadier Hedley Duncan (1944– ), Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod Ben Emmerson QC (1963– ), human rights lawyer Guy Farley (1963- ), composer Michael Geoghegan CBE (1953– ), Chief Executive of HSBC Gerard Goalen (1919- ), architect David Gold (1979- ), bridge player Sir Brandon Gough DL (1937–2012), businessman Lord Harvington (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris) (1907–97), Conservative politician Rev Professor Adrian Hastings (1929–2001), historian Dominic Hill (1969– ), theatre director Paul Jennings (1918–98), journalist and humorist P. J. Kavanagh (1931–2015), poetKavanagh gave an unflattering account of the school in his autobiographical The Perfect Stranger (1966). Frank Keating (1937–2013), journalist, The Guardian Colonel Chris Keeble DSO (1941– ) soldier, Parachute Regiment. Prince Ludwig of Bavaria (1982– ) Norbert Lynton (1927–2007), art historian David Mackay (1933–2014), architect Patrick Malahide (1945– ), actor Paul Mahoney (1946- ), judge Most Rev Joseph Masterson (1899–1953), Archbishop of Birmingham Professor Henry Mayr-Harting (1936– ), historianMayr-Harting wrote a personal memoir of the school (1949–54) in The English Benedictine Community of St Edmund King and Martyr (2003), pp. 174–193. Vice Admiral Sir Timothy McClement KCB OBE (1951– ) Senator Edward McGuire (1901–92), Irish politician Squadron Leader Robin McNair DFC (1918–96), RAF pilot and businessman Hamish Miles (1925–2017), art historian Tim Miller (1940–2000), financier and founder of Charter88